"What A Wonderful World" Art & Essay/ poetry Contest

The New Orleans Jazz Celebration’s Annual “What a Wonderful World” Art/Essay/Poetry contest honors the legacy of Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong through outstanding artistic work from students with the focus on the essence of the Jazz music in the Crescent City.

The 2019 Contest Submissions are now closed!

The awards ceremony will be held on Friday, May 24th at 3pm at the Ellis Marsalis Center.

The winners of the "What a Wonderful World" art & essay/poetry contest will be honored on May 24th, 2019 at the Ellis Marsalis Center for their outstanding artistic work and poetry . The reception hosted by EXCELth, Inc. will award winning students, kindergarten to 12th grade, from Alton Elementary, Cypress Charter, Immaculate Conception, Moton Charter, Mount Carmel Academy, Travis Hill & Lusher. Beverages and light food will be provided, along with jazz music from Oscar Rossignoli and Steve Lands before the ceremony begins. Join us!

2018's Grand Prize Winner

Photos from this years Awards Ceremony:

PHOTOS FROM 2018’s JUDGING:

Some of 2018’s Participants:

Past Winners

Last Year's Essay Contest Winner:

"What A Wonderful World"

By: Niyah Williams -Lafayette Academy

Grand Prize Winner

“I see trees of green, red roses too, I see them blossom for me and you, and I think to myself what a wonderful world.” The world is going through a phase. It is not all good, but the world may be getting better for us. New things are coming in our direction. We should all come together as a nation and do things that would satisfy us and make us safe. We the people need to make changes TOGETHER! We need to be more as a whole instead of individuals. We need more activities community wise, so the community isn’t involved in mindless behavior.

The community is a whole, so we should do things as whole such as pray together, have get togethers locally, parties, and raise money to fix up the community and make it a better place. This is important because it helps the community grow together as whole. It helps us come together as the people and do more for the community. It also helps us learn about our city in a positive way. These things could have positive influence on the community because it keeps our mind on the good things instead of being involved in destructiveness.

We as the people need to make changes together. We are as one, not individuals. We all need to volunteer through community services to clean our community. We also need to stop ridicule such as racism, stereotypes, homophobia, transgender etc. This is a huge problem and it is important that it be fixed because science has proven that everyone is made the same genetically, and the difference between people is only skin deep.

We need to have more schools and playgrounds instead of jails. People should not base amounts of beds in penitentiary because of fourth grade reading levels because they feel we should be able to read, but it’s only statistics. This is important because instead of doubting us they should help by having more enrichment programs, a lot of extracurricular activities, more healthy environments for learning. This could keep kids focused and it also can decrease the amount of fourth grade failures because of reading levels.

In conclusion, the world is too beautiful to have so much drama. We should be able to see the beauty and colors of the world instead of the darkness. We overlook the diversity of all the good things the world has in store for us and take it all for granted. People should be able to cherish and admire the world around them.

They should be able to understand how alluring the world is. These are all the things that will make the world wonderful.